The Books: The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family, by Mary S. Lovell

Daily Book Excerpt: Biography

Next biography on the biography shelf is The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family, by Mary S. Lovell

My mother has always lived in a dream world of her own and no doubt was even dreamier during her many pregnancies … when she was young she never opened a book and it is difficult to imagine what her tastes and occupations [were]. My father and she disliked society, or thought they did – there again, later they rather took to it – and literally never went out. She had no cooking or housework to do. In those days you could be considered very poor by comparison with other people of the same sort and yet have five servants … Even so she was perhaps abnormally detached. On one occasion Unity rushed into the drawing room, where she was at her writing table, saying, ‘Muv, Muv, Decca is standing on the roof – she says she’s going to commit suicide!’ ‘Oh, poor duck,’ said my mother, ‘I hope she won’t do anything so terrible,’ and went on writing.

— Nancy Mitford on her mother

The Mitford family provides a vast array of characters, each worthy of their own attention, and because life is short and there are only so many hours in the day I have had to force myself to NOT get obsessed with the Mitfords. However, I can’t help it. I have bought their collections of letters, I have Nancy Mitford’s novels, I have Decca’s correspondonce, and a biography of Diana Mosley. Debo just came out with an autobiography, which I have not read. It’s like stockpiling stuff in my library for the day when I am ready to dive into that deep pool.

Oh, the Mitfords. I love all of you crazy beautiful gals, Communists, Fascists and Nazis, all in the same family! How on earth did you manage it?

Mary S. Lovell’s group biography of the Mitford sisters is an excellent read, and a great way to dip your toe into that deep Mitford pool to get a good overview of this extraordinary family and all of its members. I am shocked that there hasn’t been a movie about the Mitford sisters, especially in that tempestuous decade of the 1930s, when everything exploded and the entire family found itself at war, reflecting the approaching war in the outside world. It’s hard to believe that it all actually happened.

What the heck was going on in the Mitford nursery, that’s what I want to know.

They were all so gorgeous, so breezy-looking, in their wool suits, and two-toned shoes and marcelled hair and light eyes. But there is something a bit blank in some of their expressions, and that, combined with their intense beauty, always seemed a bit creepy to me. Add to that the general love affair with fascism, Hitler, and Communism, specifically, and you just get a picture of a fascinating whirlwind of creepiness. These girls never heard the word “No”. These girls grew up almost unmonitored, in the belljar of the Mitford home, and as they reached adulthood, each one burst forth in her own completely self-actualized way, and each one did exactly what she wanted to do, hang the consequences. Each one was a powerhouse. Their political beliefs cut across every line there is and the sisters were fighting it out until the end of their days. Ruptures occurred that could never be mended. Add to that the fact that each one became famous, in her own right, and they all wrote books (or most of them did) where different versions of “what happened” was put out into the atmosphere … and the fight continued. “No, it wasn’t like that.” “How dare you steal my writing style.” “Listen to ME. Here is how it all went down.” You could read them squabbling forever. They had pet names for each other, and a very specific family language, almost baby-talk, which is very bizarre when you realize that they are talking about Hitler (a close personal friend to two of the sisters) or Oswald Mosley (the fascists, and Diana’s husband).

I posted a picture on Facebook of the girls, and one of my Facebook friends commented, “A Fascist and a Communist in one family. Guess stupidity is in the genes.” Well, I suppose that’s one (boring) way to look at it. I suppose it would be easier to think of the Mitford girls as “stupid”, but it’s far more confronting to see each one as pretty brilliant (if misguided, perhaps), certainly not coming from a place of bad faith – each one believed in her cause wholeheartedly – and each was incredibly stubborn. There are stories of Decca scratching a hammer and sickle into the window at the Mitford home, and Unity adding a Swastika. A tiny battleground on a pane of glass. I have written about the Mitfords before, and a commenter said “The irony is that, at least in practice, that communism and facism aren’t really that far apart (both are authoritarian and socialist in nature.). Unity and Decca weren’t that far apart in their thinking (anymore than Stalin and Hitler were).” It’s a vaguely moronic comment, entirely lacking in historical context. None of that at all was clear on the ground in the early 1930s. If you think that it was entirely clear in 1933 what Communism actually was, then you don’t know your history. Let’s not forget that the Communists in Germany were the only group of people who actually tried to fight the Nazis, and it was for that powerful reason alone that many in England were pro-Communist. The horrors of Stalin were not at all well-known at that time (only a few astute observers picked up on what was going on in the Ukraine and elsewhere) and the Spanish Civil War (which was a wake-up call for many Communists, including George Orwell) was in the near future. Decca’s belief in Communism came from the ground-up, as it did for many others at that time. Don’t impose a 1989 reality on a 1933 world. That makes you look stupid. This is not to sugarcoat any of the Mitford girls’ behavior. I just find it far more interesting to NOT just write them off as “stupid”, but to delve into what the hell was actually going on.

So there is Jessica (Decca) Mitford, the staunch Communist. She completely renounced her privileged background and threw her significant brains and energy behind Communist causes. She volunteered to fight/help out in the Spanish Civil War. She ran off (against her parents’ wishes) and got married to her second cousin, and they eventually moved to the United States. Decca became a U.S. citizen. In the late 1950s, she saw the light about Communism and left the Party. She continued to be an active political person, however, and she’s a fascinating lively person. (Her correspondence was recently published with a beautiful foreword written by Christopher Hitchens.)

Then there is Deborah (or “Debo”) who became the Duchess of Devonshire. She is still alive and just published her autobiography. Debo stayed out of the political fray for the most part (although she did become more active in the 1980s) and said very early on in her life, “I want to be a Duchess.” And so she became one. Like I said, the Mitford girls all did exactly what they wanted to do.

Nancy Mitford, close friend to Evelyn Waugh and other Bright Young Things, was a best-selling novelist, a biting critic of the social reality of the time. Much of her work is frankly autobiographical. She was famous in her own lifetime.

Pamela Mitford actually was a gentle rural girl, who also stayed out of the clash of world politics going on between Diana, Unity, Decca, and sometimes Nancy. She loved animals, farming, and nature. She was a devoted equestrienne.

Diana Mitford originally married Bryan Guinness, who was some huge heir to some foppish barony. She is one of the most beautiful women who has ever lived. She then began an affair with Sir Oswald Mosley, who was a baron, and formed the British Union of Fascists (the “blackshirts”) – the group which stirred up so much trouble in the 1930s, leading Hitler to believe that he could easily invade England since he had such huge support there. Diana Mosley was a friend of Hitler’s, and her second marriage took place at Goebbels’ house and Hitler was there. She was seen as Enemy Number One in England and when WWII broke out she and Mosley were imprisoned for the entirety of the war. She lived a long life. Even in her later years, although she was certainly not a firebrand like Decca or Unity, she resisted bad-talking Hitler. She said she knew him as a nice man. Diana is a bit monstrous, but it’s also difficult not to like her. The whole thing makes me uncomfortable, which I suppose is why I am vaguely obsessed. Decca and Diana fought openly for their entire lives. Diana was considered (by certain elements in the British secret service, who kept an eye on them) even more dangerous than Oswald Mosley.

Then there is Unity Mitford (nickname “Bobo”), whose middle name was “Valkyrie”, if you can believe it. A devoted Nazi, she was close friends with Hitler, and lived in Germany. She wanted to marry Hitler. Unity actually had access to Hitler, and would chat with him, and advise him, and tell him about what was going on in England. She would stick up for England, basically saying that England and Germany were friends. When England declared war on Germany, Unity shot herself in the head. She didn’t die, however, although she was forever changed. Transporting her back to England in the midst of an explosion of war through Europe was a huge undertaking. Unity had obviously gone mad. She could not accept that England and Germany couldn’t work it out. Unity is the most fascinating one of all of these headstrong sisters. A dangerous woman. But her love for Hitler almost took the form of a shrieking fangirl taping up pictures from Tiger Beat. It was hero worship, idolatry, with a sexual component to it too. Almost religious in nature. Here she is surrounded by all of her Hitler memorabilia.

Here is Unity hanging out with her BFF.

Here are Unity and her brother Tom at a Nazi rally in 1937. She was a true believer.

Here are Diana and Unity whooping it up with a bunch of SS officers at the 1937 Nuremberg rally.

Here is Unity being transported from hospital to hospital in 1940, following shooting herself in the head.

Diana and Unity and Tom all attended the 1937 Nuremberg rally. Diana and Unity had also gone to the one in 1933. Tom Mitford, despite his fascist beliefs, ended up joining the British army (as opposed to joining brother-in-law Oswald Mosley’s ranks of fascist stormtroopers.) Tom died in Burma shortly before the war ended. He was brilliant, like most of the Mitfords were, highly intelligent. He was probably gay. He was a major womanizer, yet he was known to have gay relationships, so the womanizing was (as it so often is) a front. Kind of a tormented guy.

Here is Diana with one of her greatest admirers:

Hitler loved Diana. Loved her looks. Called her “the perfect Aryan woman”. She took this as a compliment.

Here are Diana and Unity giving the Nazi salute.

These were English citizens of a certain class. Incredible. Mary S. Lovell’s book is brisk and lively. It gives a great overview of each journey of each Mitford, and the intersections.

Oswald Mosley has been of interest to me for quite some time because of his time period and his obvious importance. Remains of the Day is about that group of fascists in England at that time and the Lord in that book is based on someone like Oswald Mosley. What a life he had. What a creep – but I’ve also been very interested in him because his son was (is) Nicholas Mosley, who has gone on to write one of my favorite novels of all time: Hopeful Monsters. Here is just one of the many posts I have written about that extraordinary book. Not to be too weird but I’ve felt like: If my own spirit could pick up a pen and write a book explaining its core beliefs – that book would be something like Hopeful Monsters. I’m dead serious. Nicholas Mosley has written a couple of memoirs, attacking his father’s fascism, and his books (especially Hopeful Monsters) are one long indictment of such totalitarian structures.

The Mitford sisters, privileged, independent, and fiercely literary, were all caught up in these enormous upheavals of the mid- 20th century, and many of them were on the wrong side of history. They were ardent fascists and anti-Semites, Hitler-lovers. But also funny and ferocious and difficult. Powerhouses, all of them. All from one family?

The fact of their stunning good looks (they’re almost intimidatingly gorgeous, especially Diana) gives the family a strange impact they might not otherwise have. I cannot stop looking at pictures of the Mitford girls. I fall into each picture. The girls are billowy, slim, gorgeous, born to the highest ranks of society … and all of them tossed themselves towards their own destinies with ferocity and singleminded passion. They perceived no barriers that would hold them back, a direct result of their privileged status (something Decca was aware of). And whatever each one did, they did it wholeheartedly. It’s a phenomenal story. Nancy wanted to write books. She did. Some of them are still taught in college level English today. Diana was a fascist. She married the top British fascist at the time and was imprisoned for it. Unity was a fascist, as well as in love with Hitler. She spent most of her time fawning on him until finally she snapped and shot herself in the head. That is a kind of destiny. Decca was a communist. She broke with her family and threw herself into Communist Party activities until the 50s when she became disenchanted and stopped. She then opened up a bar in Florida, which is basically one way of saying, “Uhm, yeah. I accept capitalism.” (Of all of them, Decca is the most likeable.) Deborah wanted to be a Duchess, and so she married a guy who would eventually become a Duke and so she became a Duchess. Despite all of the pain some of them went through (uhm, you know, shooting oneself in the head, being imprisoned, pilloried by one’s country), there is always a heightened burning sense of destiny in all of them. That sense of fiery destiny could turn them into either monsters, or great artists. And the family did seem to split along those lines. FASCINATING.

When Decca’s father Lord Redesdale died, he bequest all of this stuff to his kids, but he added a clause “except Jessica”. Decca was NOT forgiven for being a Communist, for running away, for fleeing the privilege she had been born into. Diana loved Hitler and THAT was forgiven, but Decca was always beyond the pale. She seemed to relish that position. She was a fierce fighter.

I don’t know why I kind of can’t look away from the Mitfords, but I can’t. I’m strangely drawn to all of them.

Each one has been profiled in biographies, each one has written a book or two, but Mary Lovell’s overview puts them all together. Not to be missed.

Here is an excerpt, detailing some events in the crucial year of 1933.

Excerpt from The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family, by Mary S. Lovell

As Mosley was touring in France with Baba, Diana decided to go to Europe that summer on holiday too. Unity asked if she could go with her, rather hoping, she confessed later, that Diana would choose to go to Italy or France. But Diana chose Bavaria, partly because Tom was there and spoke so glowingly about it, and partly because she wanted to find out more about the regime, especially about the new German chancellor, Adolf Hitler, in whose activities the newspapers took such an interest.

In the immediate aftermath of Hitler coming to power there were outbreaks of violence against anyone who had opposed his election, or who ‘did not fit’ an accepted profile. Those rounded up were imprisoned in hastily erected concentration camps such as Dachau outside Munich. Then the camps resembled conventional prisons rather than the places of systematic murder they became less than a decade later. The improvements in the German economy were the envy of other European governments and most people accepted the unpleasantness – extreme as it was – as an almost inevitable cost of a new, radical regime.

Although Germany had not been her first choice, Unity was immediately mad keen on Diana’s proposal. She was just nineteen and with her increasing interest in the BUF she wanted to see for herself how the system worked. Unity was not yet wholly committed to Fascism – indeed, John Betjeman, who knew her reasonably well, thought she was more interested in film stars and the cinema. But that trip to Germany, Diana wrote in her autobiography, unquestionably ‘changed Unity’s life’. The streak of obsessive behaviour in Unity’s character, which might have made her ultra-religious had she leaned towards the Church, fastened instead on Nazism.

Earlier in the year, before Cimmie’s death and her divorce, Diana had met a German called Putzi Hanfstaengl at the house of one of Bryan’s relations. Hanfstaengl was the Harvard-educated son of a rich Munich family of art dealers, and an old friend of Hitler. When the National Socialist putsch of 1023 failed, Hitler was wounded and several of his comrades-in-arms were killed. Hanfstaengl took Hitler into his home and hid him for a while, and after Hitler’s arrest he continued to support him throughout the two years of imprisonment that followed, during which Hitler wrote Mein Kampf. In the period of political wilderness after Hitler’s release, Hanfstaengl remained loyal to his friend, and when things improved he obtained hard currency from the United States (his family had a gallery in New York) to help fund Hitler’s return to politics. His donation of a thousand US dollars during the financial chaos of Germany’s years of hyperinflation was a lifesaver to Hitler, so it is not surprising that when the Nazis came to power Hansfstaengl was rewarded with a senior appointment as Hitler’s public relations adviser, and he made it clear that he worshipped the Fuhrer.

At the party where Diana first met him, Hanfstaengl was annoyed. All one read about Germany in the English newspapers, he complained, was of the regime’s attitude towards the Jews. ‘People here have no idea of what the Jewish problem has been since the war,’ he told his listeners hotly. ‘Why not think of the ninety-nine per cent of the population, of the six million unemployed? Hitler will build a great and prosperous Germany for the Germans. If the Jews don’t like it they can get out.’ Recalling this meeting, Diana was certain that if she called on Hanfstaengl in Munich, he would introduce them to Hitler, but at first the trip consisted of sightseeing with some of Tom’s friends. Eventually, however, Diana made contact with Hanfstaengl.

He was hospitable, providing the two young women unexpectedly with tickets to privileged seats for the first Parteitag in Nuremberg, and finding them scarcely obtainable accommodations. The rally, which began on 31 August and lasted four days, had a major effect on both young women. The carnival atmosphere was vibrant with enthusiasm as crowds milled about and revelled to the sounds of oompah-bands playing old favourites along with regular insertions of the popular ‘Horse Wessel Lied‘ that had become the Nazi anthem. Some four hundred thousand people attended the event. ‘The old town was a fantastic sight,’ Diana wrote. ‘Hundreds of thousands of men in party uniforms thronged the streets and there were flags in all the windows … the gigantic parades went without a hitch. A feeling of excited triumph was in the air, and when Hitler appeared an almost electric shock passed through the multitude.’ It was, she decided, ‘a demonstration of hope in a nation that had known collective despair.’

It was difficult for those present not to be emotionally affected and, indeed, Diana and Unity were not the only visitors impressed by the showmanship of HItler’s party. Many young Englishmen who visited Germany in the first part of that decade were moved to support Hitler’s regime, even though later some came to despise it. In a recent television documentary examining the attraction of Hitler to the youth of Europe at that time, Nigel Nicholson was just one who stated that he was thoroughly hooked: ‘The catchy “Horst Wessel” song, the marching, the torches, the singing and tramping of boots – I was, at that moment, a Hitler youth,’ he said. Michael Burn was another: ‘I wrote home, “I cannot think coherently – it is so wonderful what Hitler has brought this country back to…”‘ He recalls that he was ‘stunned and excited’ by the cohesion of Germany after the political disunion in Britain. Then there was the theatre of Nuremberg: ‘great lights in the sky, moving music, the rhetoric, the presentation, timing, performance, soundtrack, exultation and climax. It was almost aimed at the sexual parts of one’s consciousness.’ Over the years that followed most of these young people recognized the true nature of the Nazi movement and defected from it, becoming leaders in the wartime fight against Hitler, but for the moment all they felt was excitement and admiration. For Diana and Unity the only regret of the holiday was that they did not meet Hitler in person. Although with their blond, tall, slim appearance they were the physical personification of Arian womanhood, Hanfstaengl told them that he did not dare to introduce them as they wore so much lipstick, which Hitler abhorred. They were used to this; Farve felt much the same way.

When they returned to England Diana had to face her father’s anger: she was still in semi-disgrace over her divorce, and when Unity gaily told them about the Parteitag David erupted. ‘I suppose you know without being told,’ he wrote to Diana, ‘how absolutely horrified Muv and I were to think of you and Bobo accepting any form of hospitality from people we regard as a murderous gang of pests. That you should associate yourself with such people is a source of utter misery to both of us – but of course, beyond telling you this … we can do nothing. What we can do, and what we intend to do, is to try to keep Bobo out of it all.’

Mosley was still touring France and the children were staying at Biddesden with Bryan, so Diana left almost immediately for Rome where she spent six weeks at the luxurious house overlooking the Forum, owned by her great friend Lord Berners. Gerald Berners, a homosexual, was a quintessential eccentric; had he possessed no talent at all, he was rich enough to indulge himself as a dabbler in the aesthetic disciplines he so enjoyed, but he was also clever and exceptionally well read, an able musician, composer, artist and writer. He had been posted to Rome as a junior diplomat but while Diana was there he seemed to spend more time working on the score for a Diaghilev ballet. Nancy would later use him as the model for her colourful character Lord Merlin in The Pursuit of Love, a compliment that Berners rather enjoyed. At his country home, Faringdon, he kept a flock of doves, which he dyed in pastel shades so that when they rose into the sky it looked as though someone had flung a handful of confetti over the rooftop, a pretty nonsense amusingly described by Nancy. Berners was one of the few friends who accepted Diana’s decision to divorce Bryan without critical comment, and Diana valued him because he was clever, witty, and made her laugh – a quality that was especially welcome at that time – but also because he was her mentor: she once said that her relationship with Berners had been the equivalent of reading arts at university.

A sense of humour is an ethereal quality that is difficult to describe but Diana explained Berners’ wit beautifully. She wrote of how, when they drove back to England together in October, they stopped over in Paris where they met Violet Trefusis, notorious as the lover of Vita Sackville-West. Her mother was Mrs Keppel, the favourite of King Edward VII. Violet and Berners decided to pretend they were engaged and in November this was announced in London gossip columns to the astonishment, presumably, of everyone who knew either of them. Violet phoned him to say she had had dozens of congratulations. Berners was delighted; he had received none, he said. When Mrs Keppel insisted that a denial must be made as the joke had gone far enough, he suggested announcing in The Times: ‘Lord Berners has left Lesbos for the Isle of Man.’

Unity passed the time at Swinbrook working at her collages and paintings, and, unknown to her parents, made regular trips into Oxford where she dropped in at the BUF offices and helped to sell copies of the Blackshirt. By comparison Nancy’s innocent tea parties with undergraduate friends in Oxford cafes, which had provoked David’s fury half a decade earlier, seem tame. Sydney saw to it that Unity did the Season again, so that her social life continued as it had during her debutante year. But whenever she was in London during the run-up to Nancy’s wedding, or during secret visits to the Eatonry after Diana’s return, Unity attended BUF rallies or Mosley’s meetings, proudly sporting a black shirt and her unusual badge, which identified her as someone special in the party ranks. At Swinbrook visitors during that period report that hardly had they set foot in the entrance hall before they were besieged by Unity and Decca demanding, ‘Are you a Fascist or a Communist?’ When one young man answered, ‘Neither, I’m a democrat,’ they retorted in unison, ‘How wet!’ and lost interest in him.